The Second Opium War consisted of two interventions in 1858 and 1860. The first campaign resulted from disputed Anglo- French trading rights in China. Although opium importing into China triggered the controversy, commercial access more generally was at stake. A joint military expedition fought its way up the Peiho River to Tientsin where in a treaty (1858) the Chinese met British and French demands. Implementation proved difficult, however, especially when the Chinese imprisoned foreign diplomats and others. A second expedition, consisting of about 17,000 French, British and Indian army soldiers backed up by the Royal Navy, followed two years later and pushed to and up the Peiho River and on to Beijing. The expeditionary force reached Beijing quickly and secured the allies’ demands. They avoided unduly weakening the imperial government, since only stable government could uphold their trading rights. The campaigns will be examined in new ways, concentrating on the co-ordination of three distinctive armies, logistics, and the Indian army’s role. The war’s most controversial episode - the burning of the imperial summer palace at the campaign’s end - will be re-examined in relation to: the conduct of the war, its contemporary and later impact, and the emblematic use of such destructive acts in ‘colonial’ campaigning.

This chapter discusses the two wars between Great Britain and the Qing Empire in 1839–1842 and 1856–1860. Usually viewed separately it makes sense to consider the two together. Both conflicts were about two sets of concerns: First, the British wanted a framework where British merchants had access to multiple ports, limited taxes, no restrictions on who they could trade with, and legalized imports of opium. Second, the British wanted a new system of diplomatic and political relations.Rejecting existing Qing systems of diplomatic relations such as the tribute system, the British wanted to utilize European diplomatic practices and international law as an institutional framework. Victory in both wars allowed Britain to redefine the frameworks of both trade and diplomacy in the manner they saw fit, creating the treaty system that would last until World War II.